Critical Thinking: Competency Standards Essential to the Cultivation of Intellectual Skills, Part 4

Abstract

tion of intellectual traits. In this column we continue the discussion of these competency standards that are essential to teaching and learning because they go beyond the development of skills and abilities to the fostering of essential intellectual virtues or dispositions. I t is not enough for students to learn critical thinking abilities. They need to cultivate within their own minds intellectual traits. These traits transform one’s character. Through the development of intellectual traits, or virtues, students orient themselves in the world as fairminded thinkers who routinely think within alternative viewpoints, persevere through dif ficulties in issues, are open to new ways of looking at things, follow the best reasoning wherever it takes them, and change their minds when it makes sense. Students who discipline their minds (through developing intellectual virtues) routinely identify problems in their own reasoning to improve their thinking and live at a higher level of self-realization. When intellectual virtues are actively and explicitly taught across the academic institution, students develop as fairminded critical thinkers, ultimately leading to fairminded critical societies. Th e following virtues–fairmindedness, intellectual humility, intel lectual courage, intellectual empathy–are essential intellectual traits in an interconnected web that ultimately must be understood in relationship with one another (Paul & Elder, 2001). They are applicable to all education levels and potentially all domains of thought.

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